Auriane Preud'homme
By Gossip I Mean Contaminate
Auriane Preud’homme is an artist and a graphic designer, living and working in Paris. Her practice shares a common theme in speech and embodiment, mixing writing, performance, sculpture as well as publishing. The sculptures she creates are immersed in deep rooted narratives and theatrical aesthetics; switching from accessories to feelings, from props to characters staged to mock our absurd everyday interactions and social realities. She observes how speech is a gendered and a social disguise which one wears and manipulates.
By Gossip I Mean Contaminate, sculptures, glazed ceramics, 235 × 78 × 3 cm and 48 × 44 × 3 cm, DOC !, Paris (FR), 2020
By Gossip I Mean Contaminate
In her book Witches, Witch-Hunting and Women, Sylvia Federici explains the evolution of the term "gossip", whose etymology "God-Sibb" (akin) designated in the Middle Ages a strong friendly relationship between women. Through the various religious pressures exerted and the beginnings of the capitalist era, the term gradually took on a degrading connotation of futile gossip practiced by women and queer people. ‘The sentences taken from a poem that I wrote, then modeled in ceramic, give a positive value to the term. Considering gossip as an informal underground language of revolt.
Lapsus Linguae tells the story of a woman who is very distressed at the thought of speaking. Seeking the empathy of the audience, the actress confesses one by one the ills that are going through her. Her first hesitant state, then leads her to a compulsive and psychotic outburst of emotions, passing through the description of the sensations experienced inside her mouth - as a symptomatic relationship to her fear of speaking. The performance humorously analyzes the power systems that emerge in a conversation and in a group.
Performed by Eurialle Livaudais.
Lapsus Linguae, performance and sculptures, metal, plaster, upholstered fabric, glazed ceramics, variable formats, 23 minutes, Mains d´Œuvres, Saint-Ouen (FR), 2019
Niama-Niama, installation, woven cotton fabric, glazed ceramic, booklets, microphone, speaker, 150 × 2 × 200 cm, Radio Kootwijk, Aperldoorn (NL), 2016
Niama-Niama is a story written with two hands with the graphic designer Marie-Mam Sai Bellier, mixing poetry and science, inspired by the principles of pataphysical writing. The story presents a sick and paranoid man, affected by multiple psychological states. The writing process, attempting to establish relations between the versions of the two authors, plays on the different degrees of reality of the exhibition (the fictional aspect of the story, the bodies present during the exhibition, the decoration elements, graphic signs of carpets, etc.). The carpet, archetypal object of the living room and the gathering, becomes the support for reading aloud.
Niama-Niama, installation
Through collaborating with artist·s, actor·resse·s and designer·s, Auriane is interested in the voicing and appropriation of her narratives.
Niama-Niama, installation
The Bell, installation, wood, resin, speakers, raspberry pi, 44 × 317 × 16 cm, Werkplaats Typografie, Arnhem (NL), 2017
The Bell, installation (Detail)
The Bell
Installation permanently located at the entrance to the Werkplaats Typografie building. The sculpture plays programmed audio tracks, reminiscent of civilian defense sirens testing their sound range every month. Echoing the mythology of sirens (dangerous figures who enchanted sailors with song), the sounds played refer to the personified image of a woman acting as a noisy, untimely and seductive concierge. Audio recordings performed with Yeliz Secerli.
Can You Hear Me?, sculptures and performance, wood, acrylic, variable formats, 12 minutes, Phantom Radio, Arnhem (NL), 2017 and Galerie Dominique Fiat, Paris, (FR), 2019
Can You Hear Me?
Four people introduce themselves by discussing their way of speaking: they share their complexities, anxieties and behaviors in society. The four actors in this conversation express themselves only through a prosthesis - acting as a theatrical mask - which carries and sculpts the sound of their voices. The shape of the accessories conveys their respective personalities in a caricatural way: confidence, confusion, discretion and egocentricity.
Performed by Eurialle Livaudais, Guillaume Gras, Nicolas Perrochet and Auriane Preud’homme.